Damian Goes To Smallville
by The Patriette
Summary: Damian Wayne's fledgling career as the new Robin takes an unexpected hiatus when an accident leaves him incapacitated. His father, desperate to keep a bored little boy out of trouble, lets Clark Kent take him on a vacation...and chaos, of course, ensues.


**Going off on a new tangent this time and indulging my new love for Batman's Robins ;) ****Obligatory disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters (with the sole exception of a certain baby in later chapters), they are the sole property of DC Comics, yadayadayada. **

**Oh, and this story is supposed to take place a year after _Son of Batman. _Enjoy!**

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><p>"Haha-gotchya!" 11-year-old Damian Wayne cried triumphantly as he leaped through Wayne Manor's expansive backyard. With a swift whack of his father's saber, the top of a well-tended shrub tumbled to the ground.<p>

Never mind that that shrub had _just _recovered from Damian's first "sword-fighting practice" a year ago. It needed to be downsized again, he thought merrily, and did another reckless somersault, blade still flashing, towards another bush.

Pennyworth would give him a dry British scolding probably. Father would smirk and pretend to be angry about his damaged shrubs. But Father had only been truly angry with him a couple of times, and Damian knew that when that happened, a smile would be the last thing showing on Bruce Wayne's face. And Grayson—well, Grayson would be pretty impressed.

_WHACK! _Off went the top of another bush.

"Off with your heads!" He'd been studying the English monarchs recently . . . _and _watching _Robin Hood _with Grayson. His new big brother did love those odd cartoons. Damian thought that particular one would be rather fun—after all, he wanted to get to know _that_ Robin and see if there were any similarities between him—but his interest turned to disgust as soon as he realized that this Robin Hood was a fox dressed up in human clothes.

"That's _stupid_!" he'd told Grayson, genuinely appalled. "You enjoy this nonsense, Grayson?"

"Oh, come on, Dami," Grayson had said, grabbing his arm when Damian tried to spring off the couch. "It's funny. Prince John is a hoot."

So Damian had sat through the whole ridiculous show, his arms folded tightly over his chest and his round little face screwed up in a disapproving scowl. Grayson had laughed like the presentation was full of stand-up comedians—which Damian infinitely preferred. The more subtle, verbal humor was so much better than these animals walking and talking like humans.

He sprang lightly onto the stone wall that encircled the garden. It was about as high as Drake was tall, about five-and-a-half feet. On the other side of the wall the ground sloped downward, towards a rolling meadow dotted with trees. The pond where Grayson taught Damian how to fish a couple of weeks ago sparkled in the summer sun. A smile of delight crossed Damian's face, and gripping the hilt of his sword, he jumped down.

What happened next was all a blur. Damian hadn't counted on the hardness of the ground, or the slope. His foot hit the ground; he felt his ankle twist and heard a sickening crack. The combination of surprise and pain threw him off balance and he fell forward with a startled scream.

He had the presence of mind to throw his sword as far away from him as he could before he started rolling down the hill. There was grass in his mouth and ringing in his ears; the breath had been knocked clear out of his lungs. For a second there, Damian thought he was going to roll all the way into the pond.

And then the ground leveled off. He stopped rolling and landed in a crumpled heap on his side, a couple of yards from the edge of the pond.

"Ooooooomph," Damian moaned, pushing himself up on his elbows. He rubbed his head, felt a lump rising on his forehead where he must've hit a rock or a root on his way down.

_I hope Drake didn't hear me scream_, he thought, a little panicky. If Drake heard him scream, he'd never live it down. He had to get back to the manor, get out of these clothes before Pennyworth saw the grass stains on his t-shirt and jeans, and wash his face before . . . well, it might be difficult to hide a swelling bruise from Father. Father saw everything.

Damian struggled to his knees, rubbing a sore shoulder and a throbbing elbow, and tried to stand up. He immediately crumpled to his knees again with a choked little gasp as a shooting pain coursed through his right foot.

He remembered enough from the first ten years of his life to recognize that pain as soon as he felt it. When he was four years old, he broke his wrist climbing up a mountain with his grandfather, the feared warrior R'as al Ghul. It had hurt so badly, Damian had cried. Damian, who had been taught to never cry, because crying was a sign of weakness and no member of the League of Assassins must ever show any kind of weakness. Ever. Not mental, physical, or emotional.

That's why they'd called his mother "weak." Because she'd loved him . . . and the Batman.

Tears of real pain smarted in Damian's eyes again as he rolled to a sitting position and felt his foot. His small, sensitive fingertips quickly found the bulge in his ankle. As soon as he touched it Damian squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed hard. A wave of nausea swept over him. This was worse than his wrist. He'd never felt pain like this, not even when Deathstroke stabbed his arms on the Scottish oil rig.

_Must get home . . . must not let Drake see me like this . . . must—_

"Damian?"

The little boy sucked in a vehement breath. _Drake. No, anyone but Drake . . ._

Yes, there was Timothy Jackson Drake, driving towards Damian on the four-wheeler he'd gotten for his birthday last week—that four-wheeler for which Damian was secretly envious. The older boy was dressed in a loose-fitting black t-shirt and blue jeans—typical Saturday attire for all the boys at Wayne Manor—and the wind, as he drove, blew back his thick dark hair from his forehead. Unlike Damian and Grayson, Drake's hair was a dark brown. It was the only physical feature that set him slightly apart from the other two.

"Whassamatter?" Drake shouted over the engine as he pulled up next to Damian. The four-wheeler's fumes almost choked Damian from where he sat on the ground. "Want a ride back?"

Damian glared up at him. "No, I don't need a ride on your stupid four-wheeler!"

He expected Drake to flare up—he usually did—at his sharp words. Instead Drake frowned, cocked his head to one side. "What's wrong with your head?"

"Nothing. Will you please leave this vicinity? You're going to asphyxiate me with that vehicle's noxious fumes!"

"You've got a lump the size of an Easter egg," Drake said. With a quick twist of his wrist he turned the four-wheeler's key and the engine died. Before Damian could put up a protest Drake leaped to the ground and pushed Damian's head back a little roughly. For once, Damian couldn't think of any insult to hurl at the other new brother of his. All his fragile plans of getting back to the house by himself were falling apart anyway.

"What'd you do? Are you hurt anywhere else?" Drake asked, genuinely concerned.

In spite of himself, Damian sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his dirt-smeared hand. "My foot. I—I think I broke my ankle."

"Lemme see?" Drake asked. Damian sniffed again and nodded. With surprising gentleness, Drake removed Damian's sneaker and sock. The foot was swelling fast; there was no need for Drake to touch the broken ankle.

"You need to get back to the house," Drake said firmly. "And for gosh's sake, don't freak out when I pick you up. I'm not going to poison you by touching you . . ."

"Don't push your advantage over me, Drake," Damian hissed. But he again made no protest as Drake scooped him up in his arms and set him, carefully, on the back seat of the four-wheeler. In seconds, they were headed back to the house, Damian clenching the back of Drake's shirt so he wouldn't fall off.

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><p>It had been a normal work day for Bruce Wayne—and by "work" he meant a day at his big desk in Wayne Tower. Meetings, phone calls, a visit to the laboratories within the tower where his finest inventors occupied themselves with their latest technological advancements . . . until four o'clock, when he got the call in the middle of his usual end-of-the-day meeting.<p>

An hour later he was on his way back to Wayne Manor. He was worried, and it showed in his hard grey eyes as he went over everything Alfred had told him for the hundredth time. Alfred _never_ called when he knew Bruce was in the middle of a meeting—but he'd told the secretary that it was urgent, and she'd put him on with Bruce immediately.

"So sorry to interrupt your meeting, sir, but we have a bit of an emergency." His laconic British accent was tinged, Bruce had realized in alarm, with concern. "It seems that Master Damian took a bad fall while he was battling the shrubbery again. Master Timothy brought him into the house and I've examined him myself. I'm afraid he's broken his ankle."

Bruce turned the Lamberghini into Wayne Manor's long paved driveway and drew a long, deep breath. If Damian's ankle was broken, Robin would be out of commission for several weeks. There was no way he could catapult all over Gotham and fight crime with a broken ankle. He would ruin his foot.

Besides, Bruce wouldn't _let_ him go out, even if wanted to.

Some said the Batman was over-protective with his two "little birds"—Red Robin and Robin. Bruce didn't really care. He'd learned from hard experience that neglect was the worst thing you could do to a child.

He parked in front of the mansion and bounded up the front steps. The house was unusually quiet. Over the past year, he'd often returned to the clamor of Tim and Damian arguing in the living room. For all they worked so well as a team on the battlefield, they were their worst enemies at home.

No squabbling today. Bruce made his way upstairs and met Alfred in the hall; the old butler carried a tray with an empty plate, sandwich crumbs still sprinkled over its surface.

"Good afternoon, Master Bruce—or perhaps I should say 'good evening,' " Alfred said.

"How's Damian?"

Alfred shrugged. "He seems to be taking the wound to his pride fairly well, I'm relieved to say. I thought he would surely sulk for a week after being carried into the house by Master Timothy."

Bruce smiled wryly. "I suppose it would be pretty humiliating. Can he get around?"

"No sir," Alfred said, his voice suddenly firm. "His ankle has swollen to the size of a small coconut. I can't even put it in a cast just yet. He won't be putting much weight on that foot for several days, at the very least."

"Easier said than done," Bruce muttered, walking past Alfred towards Damian's bedroom door.

"We shall strap him to his bed if we have to, sir," Alfred said dryly.

Bruce sighed heavily. He opened the door and stepped into his son's bedroom.

Damian's room was Spartan compared to Tim's or Dick's; he was fanatically tidy and hadn't brought much to Wayne Manor a year ago, anyway. The little boy lay on his side in the bed, his foot elevated, his sullen eyes fixed on the television set on the other end of the room. Damian hated the television; the fact that he was watching it so intently meant that he was either in too much pain to care, or he was very, very bored.

_Might be both_, Bruce thought.

"Damian," he said softly.

The little boy gave a start; he turned off the TV with a flick of the remote and propped himself up on one elbow. Bruce bit back a smile at the unmistakable gladness in Damian's dark eyes.

"Hello, Father," Damian said. He sounded like he was trying to keep himself from appearing _too _excited. "How was work?"

Bruce's smile turned to a smirk as he took in the bruise on Damian's forehead and the lightly bandaged elbow. "No need to try to divert my attention. Alfred told me all about it."

Damian's cool expression turned gloomy. "Pennyworth was good enough not to give me his usual 'I-told-you-so.' I thank him for examining me."

"Does the foot hurt much?"

Damian shrugged one shoulder for answer. "Not too bad."

Bruce stepped forward and lowered himself to a seat on the edge of the bed. The foot lay with the ankle facing the ceiling, covered by an ice pack. Gently, Bruce lifted the ice pack and heard the quick, quiet intake of breath between Damian's teeth. The ankle was a nasty blue-and-purple color. It _did_ bear a strange resemblance in size and shape to a coconut.

"Looks pretty bad to me," Bruce said dryly.

"Well, you know me, Father," Damian said, cool as a cucumber. "I have a _very _high tolerance to pain. Higher even than Grayson's."

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "You know, you won't be able to get around on that foot for a while. If you don't give it a rest, the bone will never heal."

Damian's dark eyes, which had drifted to the window, jerked back to his father. Bruce winced at the confusion, horror, and alarm in the little boy's face.

"It'll be better in a few days. I heal fast, Father. You remember what Deathstroke did to my arms? And how I was just fine after a week?"

"Of course. But he didn't do any damage to your bones. This is different. This is your _ankle_, Damian. If you don't stay off it, it won't heal properly. You could become a cripple."

Damian stared at him, absorbing this information. He lowered his head back to his pillow and fixed stony eyes on the edge of the mattress. Slowly, he began fingering the stitching in the dark quilt beneath him.

"Then you're saying I can't go with you on anymore missions."

Bruce steeled himself for his own response. "Not until that foot heals."

Damian said nothing, did nothing—except swallow very hard. "Who will help you, then?"

Bruce opened his mouth, then shut it fast. He was about to say that Tim and Dick would pick up the slack, that Tim could accompany him like old times when _he_ was Robin—but that would probably crush Damian. The boy's self esteem was low enough as it was. He tried to cover it up with an abrasive, often-bratty persona—but Bruce, master of his friends' and opponents' psyches alike, had detected a few months ago the desperate need for attention and approval.

_Back-pedal, Wayne, before you depress the boy any further . . ._

"It'll be tough work without you," Bruce finally said, his voice low but a little gentler. "We'll be glad to have you again as soon as you're back in business."

Damian lifted his eyes—_dark_, Bruce thought a little wistfully, _like Talia's_—and there was no mistaking his relief. He wouldn't be replaced or forgotten. Odd, how that had been the fear of all the Robins. Even the Other One.

"Thank you, Father," Damian murmured. "I will _try_ to stay off my foot."

"Do better than 'try,' " Bruce said, offering a small smile and a pat of Damian's leg.

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><p><strong>As the title suggests, Superman <em>will<em> feature in this story, but I'm really just doing this to have fun with Damian Wayne. I think he's a complex (and rather adorable) character and I'm curious as to how he'd interact with Clark Kent and the rural environment of Smallville. Not sure how often I'll be able to update, and I don't think this story will be very complex, but hopefully I'll get another chapter up soon!**


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